Focus on climate protection:

Improving energy efficiency with Bayer materials

Climate change is developing into one of the biggest threats to man and the environment. Bayer has been well aware for many years of the need to act, and is constantly striving to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in all its production processes. A far greater role with regard to climate protection, however, is played by some of the modern-day materials produced by Bayer MaterialScience that help to minimize the amount of energy consumed in buildings, appliances and vehicles.

Matthias Machnig, State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety

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“Companies can and must solve the problems by becoming increasingly energy-efficient and developing new technologies.”
Matthias Machnig, State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety

Matthias Machnig, State Secretary at the German Ministry of the Environment, speaks of “historic resolutions” when asked about the European climate protection targets. The EU has resolved to cut its emissions by the year 2020 to 30 percent below their 1990 level. Machnig is convinced that Germany, as Europe’s largest industrial nation, can assume a pioneering role in this: “The successes achieved by German industry in the field of energy efficiency show that investments in climate protection are well worthwhile from both an ecological and an economic point of view.”

Peter Vanacker, a member of the Executive Committee of Bayer MaterialScience and Head of the Polyurethanes Business Unit (PUR), can categorically confirm this: “Through our global environmental management system, we have been able to considerably reduce absolute and specific energy consumption.” Climate protection is not just a benchmark of the responsibility for tomorrow, underlines Vanacker, “because we also lower our energy costs in the process.” This is not exactly an unimportant argument, because chemical production is highly energy-intensive: At present, the provision of energy accounts for around five percent of overall production costs worldwide.

For the next few years, Bayer has therefore set itself an important goal: By 2015, the specific energy consumption and therefore also the volume of specific greenhouse gas emissions per metric ton of product sold will be cut by a further ten percent (based on 2005). One key area of investment will be that of gas phase phosgenation. “With this innovative process for the last reaction step in the production of toluene diisocyanate (TDI), we can achieve energy savings of around 40 percent,” explains Vanacker. TDI is a key raw material in the production of flexible polyurethane foam, which is used throughout the world in enormous volumes. “In addition to this, we are continuously optimizing our conventional production processes,” continues Vanacker, “for example through the use of waste heat to generate steam.”

Climate protection: A growing market

Yet the positive economic effect of climate protection is not restricted to improved ecology in production. In fact, the demand for new technologies and materials is opening up new markets for innovative companies: “Market studies carried out by strategy consultants Roland Berger put the world market volume for energy efficiency technologies at around €450 billion,” says Matthias Machnig. “This shows that the assumption that growth is bad for the environment is simply outdated: Companies can and must solve the problems by becoming increasingly more energy-efficient and developing new technologies.” Peter Vanacker also sees such opportunities: “Our products can make a major contribution to slowing down climate change. Bayer MaterialScience, in particular, supplies materials that help to reduce power consumption in buildings and transport” – two areas to which State Secretary Machnig also attaches considerable importance: “In the entire building heating sector, at least 40 million metric tons of CO₂ a year can be saved throughout Germany through building modernization and renovation measures.” The German government therefore quadrupled its subsidies for improving the energy efficiency of buildings to €1.4 billion in 2006.

Peter Vanacker, member of the Executive Committee of Bayer MaterialScience and Head of the Polyurethanes Business Unit

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“Our products can make a significant contribution to slowing down climate change.”
Peter Vanacker, member of the Executive Committee of Bayer MaterialScience and Head of the Polyurethanes Business Unit

Plastics enhance energy efficiency
Against this background, Peter Vanacker says that the most important product in the Bayer portfolio with regard to climate protection is raw materials for rigid polyurethane foam, which has been successfully used for many years to provide highly effective insulation in refrigerators, pipelines and buildings. The Bayer expert sees enormous market potential above all in the growth markets of Asia, the Middle East and eastern Europe.

Since the manufacture of some of these materials uses up considerable amounts of energy,” says Matthias Machnig, “it is important to look at the entire lifecycle of the product. After all, six percent of the crude oil consumed in Germany goes into the production of plastics.” In turn, however, a large proportion of these plastics serves to reduce energy consumption. In the case of polyurethane, the lifecycle assessment is extremely positive: Vanacker estimates that the reduction of CO₂ emissions attributable to polyurethane insulation currently in place is at least 90 million metric tons a year.

In future, the field of application for polyurethanes will expand. For example, Bayer is working on processes for the more economical production of photovoltaic modules. “At present, the encapsulation of the solar cells in an aluminum frame accounts for around 30 percent of the selling price of solar panels,” explains Vanacker. “This problem could be alleviated by using a time, cost and energy-saving frame made of Bayflex® polyurethane foam.” In addition, Bayer is switching over increasingly to the use of renewable raw materials, for example in the production of polyols, an important raw material for polyurethane. Some polyols already contain up to 25 percent sugar. “Fairly recently, successful trials have also been performed with the introduction of vegetable oils so that the content of renewable raw materials in some polyol grades could in future be increased to as much as 60 to 70 percent,” adds Vanacker.

Fuel savings through lightweight materials

The second concern of climate protection experts is the worldwide increase in public and goods transport. In Germany, vehicles already account for around one fifth of total carbon dioxide emissions. The German Federal Environment Ministry wants to stimulate innovation in vehicle engineering at a European level: “The average CO₂ emissions of new cars should be lowered by an eu Directive to 130 g CO₂ per kilometer by 2012,” says State Secretary Machnig.

Since the weight of a vehicle has a major influence on its fuel consumption, it opens up an enormous field of activity for Bayer: “We are performing intensive and successful research on new lightweight, high-performance plastics that further reduce the weight and thus the fuel consumption of vehicles,” explains Vanacker. For every 100 kg of weight saved, consumption goes down by up to half a liter per 100 km.